


the silence of the early morning rises from the rocks

by petrichor (findingkairos)



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, BAMF Eos, BAMF Women, Eos Saves the Day, Fluff, Gen, Non-Linear Narrative, Women Being Awesome, goddesses do not care for your mortal concerns, no beta we die like individuals who put way too much stock into conventional masculinity, time is more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-10-24 07:43:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17700383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/findingkairos/pseuds/petrichor
Summary: “I truly thought he knew who I was.” Eos sounded confused again. Could a goddess like her ever be confused? Was she just pretending? To fool them? To make them feel better? But, no, she’d said that Prompto was her favorite human because he was honest – among other things, and Prompto had never heard those words in reference to himself,ever, he was still reeling fromthat– so she must be being honest now, too.“But the Prophecy,” Noctis continued. He was still confused and in shock;Noctis.exe has stopped working,a part of Prompto’s brain slid to his conscious proper, the one that snarked as a coping mechanism whenever the world got to be too much.Please reboot your computer.After a series of fortunate and unfortunate events, Prompto happens to become Eos's Favorite Human. Except a goddess's standard of what you do for your Favorite Human is much different from said Favorite Human's.





	the silence of the early morning rises from the rocks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Adel Mortescryche (Mortescryche)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mortescryche/gifts), [Seito](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seito/gifts), [VolxdoSioda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VolxdoSioda/gifts).



> This is all my friends's fault for getting me into Final Fantasy XV.
> 
> Title from the poem ["Dawn," by George Hitchcock](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/dawn-0). I had no beta for this, so any mistakes made are entirely mine.

“What,” Prompto said. It came out more squeaky than he’d meant it to – he was going for _disbelief_ , or _incredulity_ , or even just simple _flat_ – but when confronted by a being of unfathomable power and influence, not to mention pretty much a personification of something that they all needed to survive, it was hard.

Eos, for her part, kept smiling. Her eyes kept twinkling. _That’s not fair_ , Prompto managed to think through the haze of shock, _she’s supposed to be the land that we stand on, not the sky_.

“I appreciate the compliment,” Eos said, and Prompto blanched again – she was supposed to be a goddess of light and home, not mindreading! – until he realized he’d said the last part out loud, but she just. Kept. Smiling. “I’m surprised, dear Prompto. I thought I’d made myself clear long ago.”

She’d meant it as a sentence, probably, but the end of it curled upwards into a question: careful, candid, and curious. Noctis didn’t peel his face off of where he’d mashed it into Prompto’s shoulder, as part of his bone-breaking hug, but he still managed to mutter out, “No, you didn’t.”

Of course his best friend would be the one to contradict the _actual goddess standing in the room_. Shiva had nothing on the sheer terror that Prompto could feel running through his veins right now, because the Astrals might have unimaginable power too but none of them had been, apparently, _interfering in his life since he was born!_

Prompto was still trying to wrap his head around that. It was hard.

Gladio must have been having the same issue, at least, because he was the one that set his foot down – literally and figuratively; he kept his hand on his weapon but he shifted his weight so that he wasn’t on the balls on his feet, ready to leap forward at Eos, the Star, the Horizon’s Dawn – and said, “You’re gonna hafta run that one by us again.”

And at least some of the stories were true, because Eos demonstrated her Astrals-blessed patience – seriously, without it Prompto was sure he and his friends would have been smited long ago – and said, “Of course. Where should I start?”

“The beginning, please,” Prompto said, and when Eos looked confused he hastily clarified, “ _Our_ beginning. The beginning from our point of view. The youngest you’ve ever seen us, in human years.”

“Ah,” Eos said, “ _then_ ,” and here she smiled.

* * *

The thing was, when one was an immortal goddess of the dawn that also happened to be currently one with the land, time was relative. Not that it was _not_ relative at any other time – mortals liked everything to make sense to them, and so thought it linear, a dance of cause-and-effect that stretched on forever instead of what it really was. Which was, of course, a mish-mash of events occurring all at once, because humans might like to call their lands different things like Lucis and Niflheim and Tenebrae, these days, but once upon a time all were – and still was, in honesty – still Eos.

And Eos the goddess, as anything sentient, had her favorites. Some would say, she mused, that she should not; for if an all-powerful and, indeed, relatively omniscient goddess could not be neutral and objective, then who could? But Eos had been alive – ha, _alive_ , as if she’d ever been dead or nonexistent – long enough to know what she Liked and what she Did Not Like.

It was simple, really. Eos Liked the sun, and the green fields, and the humans that stretched their metaphorical wings and less metaphorical reach from horizon to horizon. She Liked Solheim, and still did, though not many mortals still called themselves or their nation so. She Liked peace, and prosperity, because who didn’t like it when they had nothing to fear or worry about?

And she Liked one Prompto Argentum. The Astrals had asked, time and again, why; but they were young – relatively to her; as old as they might be compared to a mortal’s lifespan, Eos had been here far longer, and would be here far long after – and they did not understand. Eos’s favorite humans were always the same, anyway, and if they had not yet found the pattern then it was a hopeless case to teach them.

As complicated as Eos was, being, well, _herself_ , in this at least she thought herself simple. Prompto Argentum was funny, and sunny, and kind, and honest. All traits desirable in a human, or so she understood from when she’d walked through Solheim’s streets and overheard its people talking about each other. Someone could be more than those four characteristics, of course, but at the very least they should be those four. Funny, for laughter could cure many things; sunny, for she was the goddess of the Dawn, after all, and people who reflected her sun’s light in themselves would always endear themselves to her; kind, for what was long life without a bit of kindness to ease the way; and honest, for too many sought to deceive themselves and others.

So it should be quite clear, Eos thought to herself, why exactly Prompto Argentum was someone that she Liked. And, of course, because she Liked him, she wanted him to be happy. It was the same way with the cities that she favored and the facets of life that she preferred.

Keeping a human happy, she thought, would be easy. Keep _their_ Important Humans satisfied, and they, too, would be satisfied. Cause-and-effect, except this would be much more linear than what Time actually was.

The Marilith was more of an annoyance than a stumbling block. “Really,” Eos told it, carefully balancing the little Lucis Caelum in one arm and concentrating on gathering enough of her Light in one hand that would sear the foolish daemon but leave the building standing, “What were you thinking? This is a font of power, and above that this one is my favorite human’s _friend_.”

Curious things, friends. Eos didn’t really get the concept herself – perhaps the Astrals came closest, though they were more annoyances than comrades or equals; perhaps they would be _children_ , instead, though the thought of her cleaning after Bahamut’s messes drew a frown to her face – but she knew, intellectually, what they were. They were a human’s Important Humans. They were mortals to keep track of and to keep safe.

When Regis Lucis Caelum, father of Bahamut’s Chosen King, and another human that Prompto respected and that thus Eos was lulled into considering the feelings of, burst into the room, Eos had just managed to settle down the little Lucis Caelum in her arms from his panic with little tricks of light. “Who are you?” the man demanded, as his guard filled the room. Eos looked – Clarus Amicitia was with him. He had been fine, then. Good; it was hard enough of tracking down one of Prompto’s Important Humans as it was, and Eos had the feeling that this Important Human would be upset if Regis Lucis Caelum died.

 _Who are you,_ the man had asked. But he knew who and what she was, didn’t he? Eos had made no attempts to conceal herself, so perhaps that was a rhetorical question. She pressed down on Noctis Lucis Caelum’s nose again, gently, in what she’d learned was a “boop” in Solheim, and when the little boy made grabby-hand motions towards his father she set him down on the ground. Carefully, because the remains of the Marilith were still sizzling and though dead it would still be toxic to a babe’s skin, but she did.

She’d made sure to keep the floor from melting, anyway, so it was fine. Eos watched Noctis Lucis Caelum return to his father, and nodded to herself. “You’re Prompto’s favorite human,” she told him, “you need to take care of yourself.” Then she left, because Prompto was home alone again and if the “boop” had worked on Noctis Lucis Caelum, then it would work on Prompto as well, right?

* * *

“That was _you_?” It was Noct’s turn to be stunned beyond words, and Prompto patted his best friend on the back, _just_ avoiding saying ‘There, there’ thanks to the presence of the goddess in the room.

“That,” Ignis started, the first thing he’s said the entire time since Eos showed up to brush Ardyn Izunia away like so much lint before purging the Scourge from his body in one clean movement. His eyes were wide behind his glasses; he visibly chewed on whatever he’d been about to say, before he revised, “The tall woman who had light and fire in one hand, and Noctis in the other. The one who saved him from, by all accounts, what would have been a fatal or at least greatly debilitating injury. The woman that King Regis exhausted many resources to find, let alone try – and fail – to identify.”

“I truly thought he knew who I was.” Eos sounded confused again. Could a goddess like her ever be confused? Was she just pretending? To fool them? To make them feel better? But, no, she’d said that Prompto was her favorite human because he was honest – among other things, and Prompto had never heard those words in reference to himself, _ever_ , he was still reeling from _that_ – so she must be being honest now, too.

“But the Prophecy,” Noctis continued. He was still confused and in shock; _Noctis.exe has stopped working,_ a part of Prompto’s brain slid to his conscious proper, the one that snarked as a coping mechanism whenever the world got to be too much. _Please reboot your computer_.

“Ah, Bahamut.” Eos’s face changed, like she wished to keep smiling but instead was reminded of reasons why she is no longer in the mood to. “He has always been controlling, disbelieving that mortals can make their own decisions. A one-track mind, that one. Does life not spring eternal? Do flowers not grow if there is merely sun, and water, and soil and good air, not relying on the whim of another?”

“Wait, so did you visit Prompto when you were younger?” Gladio asked. He was still on the balls of his feet, the faint light of his weapon from the Armiger curling between his fingers. He was still ready for a fight, but with who, Prompto wasn’t sure. He wouldn’t dare to fight _Eos_ , would he?

Actually, no. Of course Gladio would. Prompto could count on one hand all the people that would dare to go against literal gods and goddesses, and all of them minus Cor Leonis were in the room.

“I would have remembered you,” Prompto said before Eos could answer that. He told himself that he didn’t want to know. He didn’t, because he knew the answer there – there was him, in the Argentum household, and his parents, and no one else. No mysterious relatives, no aunts or uncles out of nowhere. If he’d met Eos he would remember it, wouldn’t he?

…no. There was one person, but they’d not been any relative of his, he’d _checked_ , and after the third time he’d told his parents and they’d told him not to tell other people about his imaginary friend because they’d think him crazy as well as a Niff, he’d learned to ignore the woman with the long blonde hair. His memory was still fuzzy about her, but her hair had been braided and coiled into a crown on top of her head, hadn’t it? And wasn’t that – wasn’t that similar to –

Eos was no longer smiling now. “I wished to, and I did, when Prompto was younger. But after a certain age he stopped responding to me.”

Ignis and Noctis’s eyes swung over to him; Gladio kept his on the perceived threat still in the room, but his attention was on Prompto, too. Prompto knew that because Gladio had done that split-attention trick enough times in his presence, when Noctis had been in danger or there had been more than one opponent, figurative or literal, to keep track of, and he was stalling now, wasn’t he.

“I thought you were imaginary,” Prompto whispered, but in the silence it sounded loud. Almost too loud. “And I don’t really remember what my imaginary friend looked like, after I started middle school. I thought –” He couldn’t say it. Words would make it real, and then where would Prompto be, with a freshly opened wound?

“That I couldn’t be real?” Eos finished for him. Then she said, “Oh, Prompto,” and now she just sounded sad.

* * *

After a certain point, when Prompto had grown to be more like the one that Eos knew and knew of and knew him to be – time was _not linear_ , she kept muttering to the humans, but they kept stubbornly disbelieving her – he no longer saw her.

Or rather, he saw her, and he did not believe her. That she existed; that she would spend time with him; that she would be speaking to _him_ and not some other; it did not matter. Prompto’s faith had wilted, and Eos spent a long while reflecting upon herself. Had she scorched him, like she’d done when she was young, unable to contain her light and dawn and fire to something beneath her skin when she walked through the flower fields that her people had planted in her honor?

But, no. it was not that. It was something else, something that Eos herself did not understand and could admit to herself that she did not understand, unlike the Astrals who still had their pride to consider, but there was nothing now to be done about it.

At least there were things in Lucis that brought Prompto joy. There was the little Lucis Caelum who was going to the same educational facility that Prompto was, and there was the camera that was never far from his reach, and there was the dog that visited him one day –

That was no dog. Eos peered down at it, and it saw her – of course it did; it would be of more concern if a messenger of Bahamut’s Oracle could not see her – and it flattened its ears against its head. Eos raised an eyebrow. Slowly, it started wagging its tail.

“Tell Prompto,” Eos started, then paused. What should she tell her favored human? What would he even believe? “Tell him that he is loved.”

That would be vague enough, Eos supposed, that even though he could not see her now as he was, he would believe it. For now, until Eos fixed the Prophecy that brought Prompto’s Important Humans such pain – and thus brought Prompto such pain; her favorite human had such a big heart, it was honestly concerning at times – and brought Bahamut back into line.

The day that the white dog came back with a letter and a message for Prompto, and those two things were different from each other, one being from Bahamut’s Chosen Oracle and one from a goddess that few still remembered existed, he smiled. It was, Eos reflected, as brilliant as any of her golden sunrises over Solheim’s fields of wheat.

* * *

“Was that you as well?” Ignis pushed his glasses up his nose. He looked recovered now, like he’d come to terms with the fact that he was speaking with a goddess of antiquity, the Dawnmother, Solheim’s Beloved.

“What?” Eos’s tone and expression was almost innocent, if there wasn’t that glint in her eye. Prompto thought that anyone else – maybe artists, or poets, or even those bards that Solheim must have had, millennia ago – would have thought it would be a spark of wisdom, or maybe even a shine of godhood. Prompto just saw Noctis after one of his bouts of mischief, about to reveal what exactly that he’d done while Ignis or Gladio were out of the room.

“The protection of Tenebrae,” Prompto said when no one else did. Ignis seemed reluctant to open the door to the epiphany that a goddess had been interfering with their, or at least the place where Prompto’s intersected with theirs, lives since any of them could remember. Noctis was still in shock and plastered against Prompto’s side like if he let go then Prompto would leave, which was fair given the fact he’d almost gotten shot. Gladio was still in his combat-ready stance, as ready as ever for Eos to make a move he didn’t like the look of. “Were you the one who stopped the Niflheim invasion?”

“Ravus Nox Fleuret is a good boy,” Eos reflected, and that was a combination of words that Prompto had never thought he’d hear. “He has good intentions, but a terrible way of implementing them. His actions would have broken Lunafreya Nox Fleuret’s heart, and she is an Important Human –” Prompto could hear the capitalized letters there, “– to Prompto.”

Not to Noctis. To _Prompto_. Because she had written him a kind letter once? Because her Messenger-dog had made his day, all those years ago? Prompto couldn’t decide if Eos was a thoughtful goddess, or just the world’s most unpredictable one.

Noctis was staring at him, now, disbelief transitioning into budding awe and gratefulness. Noct didn’t have to say it for Prom to know what was going through his head: Noctis Lucis Caelum, referred to by his full name by Eos, but never by the Chosen King moniker that the Astrals liked to use or even the less-common but still-heavy Crown Prince of Lucis.

Noctis, who had value in Eos’s eyes simply because he was Prompto’s best friend. Noct, who had been watched over by a goddess of far longer life and power than most could imagine, because he loved Prompto just as fiercely as Prompto loved him.

Noct, whose childhood friend and fellow Prophecy-bearer had been spared – had been saved – because of a friendship with a kid who everyone else would scoff at, disbelieving and distrusting.

“But,” Gladio said, still confused, “why _Prompto_?”

Eos frowned, then. It looked like she was disappointed, and maybe a disappointed goddess meant a goddess that would _smite_ , and Prompto slipped out of Noct’s grip enough that he could try to slide in front of Gladio as much as he could without the guy noticing. He liked Gladio, he was a friend in the same way that Iggy was, and they’d all grown closer through the years, and if Gladio was turned into a puddle of melted slag and plasma because he said something that he shouldn’t have in front of the _goddess of the literal dawn and sun_ then he was going to be upset.

Gladio didn’t let him, though. He just side-stepped Prompto’s sidling so that he was in the front, blocking most of Prompto’s body from Eos’s sight, and Noct grabbed hold of him again as soon as Gladio had done so.

“The most important humans are the kind ones,” Eos replied. And if she had anything left to say – after saving Noct from a Marilith, after saving the entire nation of Tenebrae from the Niflheim invasion, after striking down a man who leaked Starscourge into the air like a foul odor with nothing less than a glance and a handful of fire – then she did not have a chance to speak it before Bahamut arrived.

The Arbiter looked to Noctis first – Prompto’s best friend straightened beneath that look, but still he didn’t let go of Prompto and he didn’t step away from Ignis and Gladio – before he looked to the human-shaped smoking Chancellor of Niflheim, and then to Eos.

Then Bahamut sighed, a gusty thing that swept the wind out of the room, and Eos smiled in the face of it. It was, for all that Eos had said she valued in her humans, not a nice smile.

* * *

Bahamut did not linger, not like Eos did, but after they’d managed to escape the presence of literal gods and goddesses – or as much as one could, anyway, and Prompto carefully _did not_ think about that – Noct pulled Prompto into a hug.

“I’m glad it was you,” Noct told Prompto, who gaped. “If it’s gotta be anyone that’s a goddess’s favorite, I’m glad it was you.”

Noct was the guy that had been favored by _the Hexathon_ for what it was worth, both then and now. And it was worth a lot. Surely a lot more than simple Prompto, Niff refugee, a boy who could shoot better than average. “You’re the one that deserves it,” Prom told Noct, and it came out like he’d meant it to – honest, because he was telling the truth. He didn’t mention the rest of it – that Noct had been deemed the Chosen King – because he knew how much Noct hated the title.

“If I do,” Noct replied, “then you do too. Even more than me. Take the damn compliment, Prom.”

“Listen to the princess for once, wouldya,” Gladio added, because somewhere between Eos striking down Chancellor Izunia and her defending Prompto – and Noctis, by extension – from a slighted Bahamut’s confusion and wrath – he’d decided, apparently, that an alive Prince of Insomnia was better than a dead one.

Ignis, for his part, merely pushed his glasses up his nose again and said, “At least this takes care of our Scourge problem.”

There were many more problems on their plate, still, that not even a magical goddess could fix – the political fallout from the Chancellor of Niflheim being struck down while on Lucian soil, Scourge or no Scourge; how they’d explain away the banishment of the Scourge, after years of fighting it; the many, many explanations they’d have to give to Noct’s dad, and to Lord Amicitia, and to Marshal Leonis – but.

But.

This, here, was proof that he wasn’t a complete wreck. That he could stand next to Noct, and stand tall. That maybe him being here, standing in Lucis instead of being gods-know-where in Niflheim, was something that was not an accident. Something that’d been meant to happen.

And in Prompto’s life, you’d take whatever reassurances that your life wasn’t a train-wreck wherever you could get it.

So Prompto sucked in the biggest breath he could, then let it out. “Yeah, that,” he told Iggy, because that was true. And then he said to Noct, “And didn’t you say that the Chancellor guy was creepy? At least Gladio won’t get arrested for treason and attacking a foreign diplomat, because who’ll argue diplomatic immunity against an actual goddess?” And if he basked in the laughter that followed, then, well. After a night like the one he’d just had, he thought he deserved to.

 


End file.
